Go to a place where you can continue your exposures in peace and quiet. May be a Starbucks?

Your WW is coming home to manipulate you and bully you into stopping. You can't let that happen.

Do not waiver on your stance that you would like to build a newer happy marriage with her, using an extremely successful program for marital recovery, but any threats to the marriage need to be eliminated.

Do NOT get angry or defensive.

When she screams or cries, just validate that you understand. Let her know that the two of you can get through this with a better plan to follow.

If she has loud threatening angry outbursts, politely excuse yourself stating that you will continue discussing later when emotions are not running so high. Go have a cup of coffee and get out of refuting her anger with angry outbursts of your own.

Remind her that you are willing to work on the marriage together, once she follows the plan and goes No Contact with her affair partner.

Repeat as necessary, then be silent.

Hit those corporate bosses too. You never know who will have influence and a higher up manager should hold a lower level manager accountable for maintaining a safe work environment.

LTL

Thanks!

I have not been able to reach OM1's Facebook friends because I can't find him. I found his ex-wife's sister and she forwarded my request to contact me on to her. She is suppose to call today but has not.

I have executed plan with exception of that part.

While I couldn't find OM1 friends, I did find his sister and brother and contacted them. I also contacted his BS/EX-BS.

My wife claims this is not the way to save our marriage. I really need to stay strong. Please pray for us. I really do want to save my marriage.

The exposure step is not saving your marriage.

But, it will hasten the death of any affairs that would prohibit being able to make any fruitful progress, so actually, it will eventually lead to clearing the field to establish a safe and productive framework to be able to not only save your marriage, but to nourish it to levels previously not even thought or dreamed of, IF both partners eventually buy in to the MB program.

Her having OS friends and affairs definitely is not the correct path.

LTL

While a spouse is having an affair, they will not be able to accept any Love Bank deposits from the BS.

The affairs MUST be crushed to allow the marriage any chance to survive and thrive.

LTL

When they are deep in the Fog waywards say all sorts of garbage.

Stay strong and vigilant, friend.

Well she came home and packed up. She is staying with neutral friend which I believe.

She finally opened up and shared feeling at me while yelling and packing. (I only yelled a couple times). I guess affair occurred years ago and had ended. OM approached her in July and expressed OM still loved her. The girls weekends were cover for her to spend weekends with OM. So it was an affair even though she was denying it right up through packing. She claimed she was still leaning toward staying with me and that the OM1 wasn't being pushy. She claims she just needed time and space. I almost believe her.

She is so hurt that I contact her sister, mother, and 2 friends. She is so hurt that I exposed the affair between her BFF and OM2. She still denies affair with OM2 but I am not sure. She keeps not telling the truth until I prove she is not.

It might be odd but I still want to save this marriage. Right now, I feel this was the wrong way to go about it. I wonder if it would have been better to confront OM1. I am going to second guess myself for the rest of my life if this doesn't work out.

I did tell her that I love her, that she is always welcome to come home. I told her that yes I am hurt, I told her that I will have some trust issues after the affair but we can work through that. I probably stayed too calm. If I could take back the exposure and do it another way, I would.

Right now I feel like the advice her ended my marriage. I hope in time that is not the case.

Please pray for my marriage! Please let me know what I should do now. Do I sit back and do nothing? Do I reach out to her? What is the next move in the play book?

FindingTruth,

She is so hurt that I contact her sister, mother, and 2 friends. She is so hurt that I exposed the affair between her BFF and OM2. She still denies affair with OM2 but I am not sure. She keeps not telling the truth until I prove she is not.

So instead of rolling over and dying on the inside, like most betrayed spouses, you stood up for yourself, kicked butt and named names.

Even if you get divorced you will still be able to look at yourself in the mirror, and this is not a bad story to tell your next potential spouse if it comes to that.

God Bless
Gamma

Look, you're right in the most intense part of exposure...the part where she's livid and tries to make you feel bad and you do feel bad because you know how embarrassed she is. (this is because you have empathy and it's hard to see someone you love suffer but it doesn't change the fact that she behaved badly and needed the light to shine on her secret shenanigans.)

You did a great job and you hit the target! You're feeling insecure about it now but give it a chance to work the poison out.

Anger can only last so long. You gave your marriage its best shot. Carrying on her affairs is going to be impossible going forward. Everyone is watching.

She's humiliated by HER actions. She's seeing just how horrifying her behavior has been. Don't apologize for what you've done here. Be calm when you interact with her. Let her know you'll do what it takes to save your marriage.

She will cool down. Be her soft place to land. You took a stand!! Be proud. You have nothing to apologize for.

You did do the right thing. All of her Fog Speak is standard script and if no one said earlier in your thread what she would say, all you would have to do is keep reading other peoples threads.

Seriously, it's all right out of the Wayward Playbook.

You DIDN'T have a marriage left if you didn't expose. The affair(s) would have become even more deeply enmeshed.

At least now she knows you are standing tall and tough for a faithful marriage.

DON'T 2nd guess your proper reactions to acting like a Real Man trying to save his marriage and not turning into a doormat.

Second guessing will do you no good. Now, Do NOT commit any Love Busters and read up on the rest of improving yourself as a good viable husband.

Ask for specific advice to learn how to achieve that goal. Her outrage WILL dissipate.

Stay on course and follow the plan.

LTL

And when you feel unnerved by her and her attempts to turn this around on you think of your son and how he needs you to fight to keep his family together.

Then think about those 'weekends with the girls.' OUTRAGEOUS.

FT, you did the absolute best thing for your marriage. Most of us here who are in recovered marriages attribute that to exposure. It is the most POWERFUL weapon in saving a marriage. Affairs thrive on secrecy so keeping them a secret only serves to enable them..

I get the sense that you feel that your exposure has been ineffective because your wife is angry. That is because you had unrealistic expectations about exposure. We KNEW she would be furious and anticipated it. The more angry, the harder you hit her affair. That is a good thing not a bad thing.

But see, our goal is to save your marriage; your goal is to avoid her anger at all cost. Your marriage can survive her temporary anger over exposure, it cannot survive her ongoing affair. If your goal is to just avoid her anger, then your marriage won't make it.

No, the advice did not end your marriage. Your wife is just angry about your exposure and is capitalizing on your fear to move out and be with the OM. Her intention was to intimidate you into silence and inaction while she carries on her affair. ["time and space"]


What you should do is complete your exposures and confront the OM. If you let up now before the affair is killed, the affair will just thrive and grow.

How are you feeling this morning? You probably didn't get much sleep. Neither did your WW, if that's any consolation.

You may hear from her today, once again telling you how YOU destroyed any chances of working through the problems in the marriage. Your past history WILL be completely rewritten and you will be demonized for every fault you ever made and you may feel tempted to believe everything and feel like a real chitty husband and that YOU screwed up the marriage.

Just stay calm!!! Tell her that you are willing to work with her to create a marriage that will make both of you completely satisfied and you have a successful plan to follow to achieve that goal.

Become a broken record. Do not get sucked into any arguements and angry outbursts. NONE!!!

Remember one very key point.

Waywards lie and fabricate to justify what they have done and say to do that to rationalize that it really wasn't cheating, because the marriage was already over in her mind, or some other similar gibberish.

ONLY believe 1/2 of what they do and NOTHING that they say.

Only believe her actions, not her words.

Read this, especially the part about the fallout after exposure:

Exposure Advice

Exposure targets: Parents of all concerned, family, close friends, children of the Loyal Spouse, workplace [if a workplace affair], spouse of the Other Person, pastor. Facebook friends of Other Person.

Exposure timing: Exposure should be done immediately. The longer you wait, the more entrenched the affair becomes. There is never any �perfect� time to expose, so don�t delay while looking for an imaginary perfect time.

Expose on the SAME DAY � or as close as possible � in order to achieve a tsunami effect. The affairees should be completely taken by surprise. Doing this creates a powerful hit on the affair and prevents the affairees from pre-empting you EXPOSURE TACTICS:

Spouse of affair partner - Give your full name, phone # and email address. Tell the other Loyal Spouse all about the affair, offer to share all evidence with him/her. Offer to follow up to ensure that contact is truly ended and ask the other Loyal Spouse to do the same. The other Loyal Spouse will be shocked when you tell him, so be sure and give your email address and phone # for follow up questions. ALWAYS GIVE THE OTHER LOYAL SPOUSE YOUR DISLOYAL SPOUSE�S PHONE # IN CASE HE/SHE WANTS TO CALL.

Parents, close family, friends � Tell them about the affair, giving them names, general timelines, etc. Explain you are attempting to save your marriage and would be willing to forgive your Disloyal Spouse if he/she ended the affair. Ask them to use their influence to persuade the Disloyal Spouse to end her affair. A way to save time is to call both sets of parents and send an email to the other close family and friends. Template letter posted below

Parents of Other Person (Affair Partner) - Give your full name and explain why you are calling. Ask them to use their influence with their son/daughter to persuade them to leave your spouse alone. It might also help if the PARENT of the Disloyal Spouse calls them too.

Workplace exposure � Expose to Director of Human Resources, a key Vice President and both of the affairee�s supervisors using the template letter posted below.

Facebook exposure � Should be done to the Other Person�s facebook friends via private message. This is a very, very effective exposure because it is a collection of the Other Person�s closest friends and family. SPACE THE PM�S OUT 60 SECONDS APART SO FACEBOOK DOES NOT SHUT YOU DOWN FOR FLOODING. Before you begin, copy and paste all the contacts into a WORD doc. Change your facebook picture to a picture of you and your spouse and children. Template letters posted below.

The Fallout: Expect your spouse to be FURIOUS and to make all manner of threats, �I was going to work on the marriage, now I am not!!� �I cannot trust you� �You have to pack and leave!!� �You have ruined any chance you had!!� Do not let this bother you!! Just imagine that you have taken the crackpipe away from the crack head. Of course they are angry. But it will blow over. Don�t laugh, don�t fight, don�t attempt to reason with them, and most of all, don�t be SCARED! Your marriage can survive some temporary anger, it cannot survive an ongoing affair! The madder your Disloyal Spouse, the harder you hit the target!

The goal is to save your marriage, NOT to avoid your wayward spouse�s anger at all costs. Just say, �I am so sorry you are upset.

Common Exposure Mistakes

1. Telling the Disloyal Spouse that you got the idea to expose on the internet rather than taking ownership of your actions. Then the discussion becomes �who???� You need to OWN IT. Saying somebody told you to do it does not work for 5 year olds and it won�t work for you!

2. Keeping exposure a secret. Yes, you read right. But we have had exposure targets say �ok, I will keep this a secret!!� And they never tell the Disloyal Spouse they know. That defeats the entire purpose. If that person won�t help you by speaking to your Disloyal Spouse, at least TELL the Disloyal Spouse that person knows.

3. Doing trickle exposures. Meaning exposing to just a few people but not to everyone that could have an influence. Trickle exposures are a disaster because they are not enough to kill the affair but just enough to infuriate the Disloyal Spouse enough to come after the Loyal Spouse. So the exposure essentially only served to beat down the already beaten Loyal Spouse for no benefit.

4. Eliminating exposure targets because that person �has no influence over my Disloyal Spouse� even though this is a person with long history over the Disloyal Spouse�such as a mother or father. Such targets cannot be dismissed on such a subjective basis because the LOYAL SPOUSE CANNOT PREDICT WHO WILL OR WON�T HAVE AN INFLUENCE OVER THE DISLOYAL SPOUSE. Sorry, but unless you are psychic and your name is Madame Cleo, you don�t know. Many Disloyal Spouses are estranged from a parent, sibling, pastor but that is not a knock out factor.

5. Threatening to expose. Using exposure as a threat only serves to forewarn the affairees and cause them to go further underground. All you have achieved is to give the enemy your battle plan so they can come back and kick your rear tomorrow. It also gives them an opportunity to pre-empt you and tell others you are �crazy� �jealous�. Then then when you do expose no one will take you seriously. Threatening to expose is the equivalent of giving your battle plan to the enemy. Don�t do that!

LTL

Bravo!!!!

That's exactly the reaction you want. The more their head spins, the more affected and shamed they were. You didn't want it to pass by her notice did you? Were you expecting approval for revealing her skanky behaviour!?

Just keep your head and carry on. Cool like James Bond.

Oh and the VP is the key exposure imo. The head of the snake. He kicked off all the adultery at this firm and he will cover up for his friends unless you go for him like the daddy vampire he is.

WW spent last night at home to help with DS. She slept in different room. We didn't talk. How can she forgive me for the exposure to her close friends and family? I also told a couple of my family and friends because I needed someone to talk to. She is afraid that she will be always judged. How can I move use from withdrawal to conflict?

I am planning to talk to her today (if she will let me). I want to make sure she knows I love her. That what is in past is water under bridge and I will stop asking questions about it. I want her to know she is welcome here and that I will respect her boundaries.

I know it is too soon to extend olive branch but I really want to. I think DS is the only thing that gives me hope that this could work. We need to do things as a family (3 of us). That might help her to forgive me? Maybe in a couple weeks, I ask her out on a date as if it is a first date?

She also knows that I will be attending therapy by myself.

Anyone have advice on the next stage?

FT, the more significant question here (and she knows it!) is how can YOU forgive HER for being unfaithful to you?

Exposure is something she should have considered BEFORE having the affair. I know it can be upsetting to be gaslighted, but it is her choices and behavior that started all this. She betrayed you... deeply.

What you are doing is making a clear statement that you care enough about your wife, son, marriage and family not to stand by and allow something/someone to destroy it. You're taking a stand... and that is a very good thing. If you do not, your wife will never learn to respect you. Don't allow her anger to make you feel otherwise. Don't get pulled into her AO... go make breakfast for your family instead. If I understand what I am learning, you should be in plan A right now... vets??

The vets can tell you how to convey to her appropriately that you CAN and are WILLING to forgive her and work with her to build a fabulous marriage... provided that she has NC and is committed to recovery.

YOU NEED TO WAKE UP, SIR!!! You are making strategic mistakes that will wreck any hope of recovery. We knew she would be back. She only left because she was enraged about exposure. I would let her know you would be willing to forgive her if she met certain conditions. Whatever you do, DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR EXPOSING HER AFFAIR. If you do that, you are pretty much finished because she will be much harder for her to wake up from her fog if you pretend like you did something wronng by exposing.

A little lesson in morality:

* It is wrong to commit adultery

* It is NOT WRONG to expose wrongdoing

You need to get your head wrapped around this right now because you are making strategic mistakes by assuming that you did something wrong because she is angry.



You are inviting a continuation of the affair and are making serious strategic mistakes. You are capitulating only because she is ANGRY. You seem to believe that her anger means you have been BAD.

YOU ARE HURTING ANY CHANCE OF SAVING YOUR MARRIAGE WITH THIS RECKLESS REACTION TO HER ANGER!!

If you take the car keys away from a falling down drunk and she gets angry have you done a bad thing? Or have you done the necessary thing regardless of her anger?

I don't have much hope for this situation unless you snap out of it and stop acting on FEAR. You are putting yourself at the mercy of a fogged out wayward and jeopardizing any chance of recovery!!

She is playing you like a fiddle with her anger. And it is working!!!! You have handed control of you and your child's lives over to the mercy of fogged out, selfish, angry wayward. You will lose BIG with that act!